


Soulforge

by NightsMistress



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: F/M, psychic wizard kisses, time period: A Wizard Abroad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 13:46:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5499284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/pseuds/NightsMistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan's perspective of The Kiss in A Wizard Abroad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soulforge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaiosea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiosea/gifts).



> [Apparently this scene is of historical significance!](http://dduane.tumblr.com/post/37708956343/30-day-otp-challenge-young-wizards-day-12) So naturally when I saw that you had prompted Ronan's perspective of the kiss, Kaiosea, I had to treat you.
> 
> This is compliant with the NMEs, but the only real difference between the two versions for this story is that in the NMEs Ronan gets to swear.
> 
> My thanks to GrayShadows and Mutuisanimus for the beta.

‘You’re not going to get any pushing out of me on this one’, she’d said, sitting on the fence of her aunt’s property. He could feel the roughly sanded wood under her hands as she gripped the rail, the butterflies in her stomach, the arch of her neck as she raised her chin. He wasn’t sure whose heart was pounding — was it hers or his? Was it the palms of her hands that were sweaty, or his? Whose breath caught just then?

At least the Knowledge _told_ him what was going on this time and why, that when two fluent speakers of the Speech grew more intimate with one another they shared more understanding than mere words. If only the Knowledge had been more forthcoming on the other sensations he’d been experiencing for the last few weeks: the frustration that constantly spurred him to lash out, the deja vu as he looked at the Treasures and remembered their purpose, the memories of an alien sky examined through eyes that saw beyond the human visible spectrum.

The voice that, even now, would not shut up. He tried to ignore it. Unfortunately, it didn’t get the message.

 _Are you_ really _going to do this? Now?_

He supposed he was. It seemed that kind of night for taking a chance and seeing what happened. He wouldn’t be here, eight miles from home, if he thought she couldn’t help. This wasn’t quite the form in which he had expected the help to come, but he wasn’t about to _refuse._

After all, she was different to every other girl he’d ever met. When would he get another opportunity like this?

He leaned back on the fence. It seemed his entire strange, unsettling summer had been solely for this moment, standing against a fence with this strange American girl who showed up and got under his skin as if she had always belonged there, waiting for this moment of just him and her.

He leaned in and kissed her.

Physically, it was much the same as any other kiss, if a little awkward at first as Nita seemed uncertain what to do with her nose. Ronan, at least, had been kissing people for some time now as there was little else to do in Bray, and so had that part worked out already. It was the rest that came as a surprise. 

He had known that Nita was complex, but he hadn’t realised how complex she was. He had thought of her as a brick wall, but he hadn’t known of the fiercely determined core that drove her forward, the selflessness that was a sharp-edged weapon against the Lone Power. She was a star that burned hot and bright and _dangerous,_ to herself, and to anyone who stood in her way. He’d caught at her shirt as he saw this in her, dazzled by the kiss and who Nita could be if only she knew what she had inside of her, and he didn’t know the words to tell her.

Then again, he didn’t think he would need to. He could feel her mind entangled with his own, her thoughts reflecting what she saw in him. He had told her that she thought loudly, but he hadn’t said that he liked that about her. _Green? Is_ that _what I look like to her? Huh._ He’d been told worse. He could feel her tentatively try to explore deeper, to understand him better. There was recognition there, of something he did not know or recognise, and he ought to because she was reflecting _him_. 

Was this his answer? Was this how he would learn what had been growing inside him since the beginning of summer, by the reflection of himself cast by the thoughts of some blow-in?

He broke the kiss. Everything was so still, like the area around them had taken an anticipatory breath and was waiting for what came next. He could feel his stomach flip over nervously, his heart pounding. He’d kissed her, and though he still felt anxious and scared of whatever it was that was coming for him, the kiss was the nicest thing he’d had in weeks.

So he did it again.

This time around, when she tried to delve deeper into what made him _him_ , he let her. _Let her in,_ and he wasn’t sure if that was him who had thought that or not, but he thought it seemed like a good idea regardless of where it came from. Thought that he _could_ , and that she could know all of him without it being embarrassing or shameful. So he did, and she did. It wasn’t so bad, he told himself, and after a moment of uncertainty, it wasn’t. She seemed to like it — like _him_ — as she saw more of what made him who he was. It wasn’t a comforting sensation, but it was a clean, powerful one. He thought he could grow to like how she saw him.

Then she found something. Something inside him that he did not know about himself. Him, the wizard with a chip on his shoulder and a cant to his chin that said _I know what I am and I know what you should be_ — had something angry and frustrated inside him, stymied from its true purpose but which could burn like a star. Like Nita, only more fierce and hot and _so_ very good. 

He didn’t want to know. Something so good could not be a part of him, because that was an innate fierce purity that was impossible for a person to hold inside themselves. It was a powerful righteous anger that wanted to set everything right, and knew the place to stand to make that happen, and that was not something a teenager from Ireland knew. 

As he followed Nita’s thoughts back and saw who she was reminded of, he felt sick. He had been attending Sunday School for as long as he could remember, and his gaze had always been drawn to the stained glass panels of St Michael the Archangel. Those didn’t do Him justice.

Ronan’s breath caught.

Nita remembered the Champion as He truly was; a brilliant, unconquerable force for good, one that distorted space-time around Him and brought back His sibling to Timeheart. Ronan couldn’t help but appreciate that she didn’t think of the macaw as being separate to the Champion, as if it had been just a corporeal envelope to transport Him from one place to another inside space-time. It didn’t bode well for Ronan’s continued existence, and it wasn’t _fair_. He’d just wanted to kiss a pretty foreign girl, and have someone tell him things would turn out all right.

He hadn’t wanted this at all.

“No,” Ronan gasped. “ _Feck no_!!”

He jumped from the fence, the gravel jarring his ankles as he landed, and he didn’t care. He ran, but it was hard to run from yourself. As far as kisses went, it really wasn’t the best he’d had, which was a shame as before Nita had discovered the Champion it had been imperfect, and awkward, becoming something meaningful and special.

 _It still could,_ the Champion said. _You could go back._

 _Shut up and get out,_ Ronan snarled, but he knew it was futile. The moment was lost.


End file.
